HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1954
one in English and one in Chinese, from 7 a.m. to midnight daily. The programmes include relays from Radio Hong Kong, the B.B.C., and other broadcast programmes, but are mainly originated in the Com- pany's own studios. The distribution network, which at the beginning of the year covered the whole of the urban areas of Victoria and Kowloon and most of the Peak, has now been extended to the New Territories. Tsun Wan, Sek Kong and Un Long were brought within the network during 1954, and the development plan for 1955 provides for installations in other areas of the New Territories, including military establishments.
There are three amplifying stations, two on the Island and one in Kowloon. Each subscriber has a loudspeaker and selector switch installed in the house, and pays a service rental charge of $10 per month and may pay an additional $5 a month for an extra point. Altogether some 53,000 loudspeakers have been installed.
Although the studios and most of the Company's office space at Arsenal Street were gutted by fire on December 8th there was virtually no break in the trans- mission of programmes. Broadcasting is at present being carried on from temporary studios while the Arsenal Street premises are being rebuilt.
Films
Maintaining a steady production average of about 200 feature films a year, Hong Kong is second only to the United States of America, Japan and India as a film producing country. About 25% of the films made in the Colony are in Mandarin dialect and the remainder are in Cantonese. Usually the Mandarin
210